Monday, November 25, 2024

 Monday, November 25, 2024  

 I woke up around  4 a.m. after a good night’s sleep.  If I’m fully awake, I’m better off getting up and dressed than lying in bed trying to sleep.  I wrote for a while and then did my upper body exercises and morning walk with Elsa.  I left at 7:30 for Chi Qigong. Clyde wasn’t there when I arrived.  This confirmed that his note about canceling the Chi Qigong didn’t refer to last Monday alone.   I was glad I was there anyway.  That view of the shore with its lava rocks looking like sunning large black turtles and tide pools is one of the main reasons I come every Monday. 

   Another woman was a few paces ahead as I walked to the shoreline. She sat on the bench at the picnic table. I joined her.  She said, “Look,” and pointed to a pod of dolphins about 100 yards offshore leaping out of the water as they moved north at a good clip. I had never seen anything like it before in my life. It was amazing. 

   This shared event led to some conversation. Her name was Lisa, and she worked as a counselor in one of the local schools. It was a lovely encounter. After Lisa left for work, I did the Chi Qigong sequence on my own. I felt like I left something out. I’ll have to check with Clyde when I see him next Sunday for the Sound bath.

   When I got home, I pushed past my reluctance and got out to do another stretch of the plumbagos. The gardener cut them back from their ten-foot height to three, but they didn’t cut them back as far from the fence as necessary to make a walkway for me. 

  I only worked with fourth-grade GV today. I discovered he doesn’t know the individual sounds in spoken words, the phonemes. I have my work cut out for me. 

   It is unclear why people have auditory processing problems. It could be genetics, epigenetics, environment, or just dumb chance. Regardless of the cause, the brain is plastic. In most cases, new synapses can be developed. The cause is irrelevant.